Basic Keyboarding Skills

One of my 10 year old students in my Coding 101 class recently asked me how to cut & paste code. It dawned on me, once 3 other students chimed in confirming their need to understand such a basic skill too, that so many students simply do not have the basic knowledge of keyboard use. Further, in computer programming, we use many unusual keys such as { } and ( ) and ; and “ “.

Dear parents, while you’re at home with your kiddos through the rest of the school year and/or throughout the summer, please take it upon yourself to assess your student’s basic understanding of the keyboard. Do they know how to do the following:

• Cut & Paste and Copy & Paste using both the mouse and hot keys
• Switching between windows
• Creating a file, saving a file (in the right place) and being able to find it again
• Knowing how to safely and effectively search on google
• Knowing how to find a browser and type in a URL

You’ll be as surprised as I was to find how few students in the 9-12 year old age group know how to perform these routines. Also, don’t take your kiddo’s word for it…please sit down with them!